Anachrophobia by: Jonathan Morris

 

Let’s talk about the Time War.  While its aftermath is the motivator for the Doctor in the revived series of Doctor Who, it was far from just an idea in the mind of Russell T. Davies.  The Eighth Doctor Adventures and their use of Faction Paradox with the War in Heaven has as much influence on the revival’s depiction of the Time War as the Virgin New Adventures had on the portrayal of the Doctor and the tone (and the rise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).  This series of reviews on the Eighth Doctor Adventures have been going on and off for several years now, Anachrophobia being the most like a story from the revived series.  It is the first of two novels for the range by Jonathan Morris, his second novel overall after Festival of Death which was a wonderful debut.  Anachrophobia is interesting because of how many layers Morris puts in this one.  On the surface, it’s a fairly standard base under siege tale with the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji being separated from the TARDIS at a military base in the middle of a temporal conflict.  The temporal conflict is the first layer to really peel back as much of the novel is dealing with how this conflict functions and the advancements in the war between the Plutocrats and Defaulters.  Morris naming his factions after terms dealing with wealth and money adds its own layer to the novel.  Rhetorically it’s a conflict of the scrappy underdog resistance going up against a large, colonizing force.  Time in this instance is in the place of material wealth, and the inciting incident sees the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji mistaken for Plutocrats.  While not made explicit, Morris is examining the universe post-destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords in a way that hasn’t quite been done since The Ancestor Cell destroyed the planet.

 

The Doctor is the centerpiece of Anachrophobia.  While Morris refrains from giving the reader much from his point of view, the way Fitz and Anji see him is particularly important.  The Doctor is no longer the Doctor and is tempted throughout the novel with moments where he can gain power.  The power would allow him to reset the universe to his own making.  While Morris doesn’t mention the Time Lords by name, instead reflecting on the events of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and the loss of his second heart.  There is an argument to be made that Fitz and Anji are going through their own journey losing faith in the Doctor as was the case with the companions of the late 1980s and 1990s, the ending of the novel having the Doctor make the right choice in the end but Morris is particular in how great the temptation was.  Outside of that piece of temptation Anachrophobia is also one of those novels steeped in surrealism, the cover being one that calls to mind City of Death and the Clock People as featured in the novel are a terrifying threat.  The Clock People are unknowable, there is a possibility of them being part of Faction Paradox, but the Faction doesn’t actually get a mention in and where Morris leaves things vague enough that the novel becomes almost Lovecraftian because of what the Clock People represent.  While the named characters are incredibly well characterized and Morris is using his naming techniques to make them stick in memory, the trick being pulled is that you don’t actually know much about them.

 

Anachrophobia is a novel almost designed to leave a brief impression in the reader, and that’s what makes it work so incredibly well.  It’s one of those novels that I can easily see myself returning to and reassessing depending on my own personal headspace and the context in which I am reading it.  It’s a novel of far too many layers to be fully dissected on a single read.  Morris writes a novel that wishes to reflect on the basics of Doctor Who (and the back to basics approach) while deciding to throw them out and push the range forward into new territory as practically the last five or six novels in the range have attempted (and often succeeded in doing so).  8/10.